Driver Blog-Marie Ferriolo-TAFC

At the ripe old age of 27 I finally started my TAFC career.  I was supposed to start racing when I was 7 but when my Dad introduced me to junior dragsters I was more interested in ballet and all things pink.  An opportunity was presented later to start after I graduated college, clearly too big for juniors so looking towards the super comp, but I came home my junior year telling my parents I wanted my Masters so I could be an awesome Speech-Language Pathologist which meant an additional two-year delay.  Supportive as my parents always have been, my driving career was again pushed back.  Well… sort of.  (You see I grew up around race cars.  I was washing wheels of my Dad’s Formula V when I was in diapers.  After that he had a rear-engine dragster, which led to an NHRA TAFC.  The summers of my adolescence in the ‘90s bounced between the shore and Division 1 drag strips for over a decade.  While I wasn’t the bottom-end guy and never actually touched the fuel system I did everything I could to learn and get my hands dirty on occasion.)  Impatient as they sometimes can be, my parents decided it was my turn to drive in 2007 and came home one sunny afternoon with the frame of a rear-engine dragster.  It didn’t have a motor in it, but we stacked a couple of parts boxes so I could have a big-box Chevy for a few weeks… get it?  Big-box, big-block haha!!

Anywho, we started slow… just a few light passes down the quarter mile at Atco or Maple Grove on test-and-tune nights.  It quickly evolved into “Please please PLEASE can I go faster?!?!”  I was entered into a few bracket races, won a round here and there, but my math calculations were always off and my reactions times were never consistent.  Onward and upward!!  I always knew the original intent of this process was to take baby steps, not rush me into driving a funny car which was the ultimate goal.  (I’m so not a dragster girl.  I give Karen Stalba, Hillary Will and Jackie Fricke a lot of credit for what they do – it’s just totally not my style.)

So we moved onto Nostalgia Funny Car racing, the perfect idea for my funny car driving entrance.  Ferriolo Motorsports (aka my parents and family friends who could help out) launched forward with a Littlefield blower and a ’71 Mustang body with a fantastic paint job compliments of Bruce Mullins.  It’s important to note another obstacle on my journey to TAFC is that I’ve never driven a car with a manual transmission, so the concept of swapping feet was extremely foreign to me.  Enter the Crower Glide and all of the glories of a centrifugal clutch.  License passes started--yaaaay!!  Oh wait… We had a rough start.  While we had spent ample time practicing the entire procedure for driving a funny car, things work quite differently when actually strapped into the driver’s seat moving over 175 miles per hour.  Bottom line is my 3^rd licensing pass ended up in the net at the end of Atco raceway.  It was a hard hit to take, primarily emotionally because of all the time and effort my racing family had invested up until that point.  I walked away with a bruised ego but my body was perfectly intact thanks to Simpson.  Just a few short months later all was repaired and my license was obtained.  We went to a few match races in the next season and a half.  I got to be a part of some awesome moments – Atco’s 50^th anniversary show, winning Geezers at the Grove in 2010, and meeting some really great people throughout the whole trip.  But I wanted more.

As I said before the ultimate goal was TAFC… I missed my Division 1 family, I missed Safety Safari and I really wanted to know what it was like to make a 5 second pass.  So we journeyed back to NHRA.

My 2011 season is about to come full circle – I started at Maple Grove for my first divisional and I’m ending at Maple Grove for my second national.  This season has been a whirlwind of career best ETs and speeds, fuel line disasters, learning the rules of appropriate burn-out-ing, an interview with Kristin Moeser on the Sam Auxier Jr Show, getting over a terrible case of pre-run jitters, and spending wonderful times with my parents.  While I can’t tell you the assembly for a clutch or the flow of the fuel pump, I can tell you what it’s like to stage a car at 7000 RMP and get shoved back into your seat when the car launches, waiting for that shift light to flash.  I lined up next to the champ TWICE and had him sign my time slip because, no matter where he finishes in the championship this year I will always believe Frank Manzo is The King.  My reaction times are getting better and my speeds are getting faster with a load of thanks to my crew chief Jimmy Dunn, his wife Pattie, Chris Raab, Alex Keegan, Fernando Gonzalez and of course, Wes Gumb. 

As I pack my bags tonight I have to remember a few things: socks, a toothbrush, an umbrella, the photo of my boyfriend that comes to every race (he’s my number one fan in life), a picture my godson drew, my ticket, and the cables for the laptop.  I’m leaving my nerves at home.  I’m a part of one of the most competitive 23-car fields and I will feel incredibly honored to qualify among my TAFC family as I close out my rookie season.  But even if I don’t qualify I will still smile because it’s been one heck of a ride so far :-)  Wish me luck and follow me on twitter @marieferriolo !!